The Guildford Lido Legends' Cross Channel Swim

The August Bank Holiday has traditionally seen an exodus to Europe and beyond, but for six Surrey/Hampshire swimmers, a day trip to France meant foregoing the facilities of the cross-channel ferries and donning their speedos – or as the rules put it "conventional gentlemen's or ladies' swimwear."

On Monday, when weather, and most importantly, tidal conditions were best, the six, swimming as "The Guildford Lido Legends", relay team (each swam for an hour at a time under the expert guidance of the support boat crew) through the world’s busiest shipping lanes arriving at Cap Gris Nez near Calais nine hours and thirty five minutes later.


The team comprised: Dana Haugli (43), Emma France (37), Christina Victor (51) and Jim Boucher (44) from Guildford City along with Ellery McGowan (59) Godalming and Rory Fitzgerald (47) Winchester Penguins.

The reason for this adventure was to fundraise for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. Emma's son, Josh (12) was diagnosed with Becker muscular dystrophy in 2000. At the time, Josh was already a member of Guildford City Swimming Club and this diagnosis has subsequently allowed him to compete as a disability swimmer at a National level. Since then, Josh has competed twice at national level and has won many national medals.


The relay team was organised by Dana Haugli (on the left), who swam the first leg out from Shakespeare Beach in Dover. Dana had been training during the summer under the watchful eye of none other than Alison Streeter MBE, the "Queen of the Channel" who has completed over 40 solo crossings. The team has been seen in 800 or 1500m pool swims and occasionally open water events, certainly not the distances involved in the channel, making this a new experience for all.

Our trusty skipper and first-mate (both accountants, making an on-board total of five, undoubtedly a dangerous cargo under IMO rules!) were waiting for us on their precariously-small-looking, but very sturdy vessel "Seafarer". For those thinking of having a go, the sea state is only ever like the picture about 1 day in your average millennium. But the water is not cold – at least compared to other parts of the UK.

Dana’s reaction time was about as good as you get off a sandy beach without starting blocks and at precisely 0815 BST we were off – well she was - while we sat in a nervous huddle in the bit behind the bit where the skipper sits – aka steerage class.


Dana swam approx 4km on the first leg taking advantage of the smoothest water of the day. Just like "normal swimming" there are rules for relay takeovers and the team does risk a DQ (disqualification) should the starting swimmer not start behind the completing swimmer. And just like pool relays you have to swim fast as you finish, however unlike in the pool there is a good chance of being left behind if you don’t! But for most of your hour you just swim and swim and swim avoiding as many salt-water gargles as you can. You can engage in jellyfish-watching but the preferred view is to believe that they migrate to much warmer waters and that they have no real interest in swimmers. There are no – well we think there aren’t – lanes on the bottom of the channel however there are other, far more important lanes to consider and to quote from the CS&PF (ie official) Website:

The English Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, with approximately 600 vessels moving up and down them every day, plus the ferries , seacats and jetfoils crossing between England and France at very regular intervals. Because of this international shipping lanes have been agreed…

What this means is that at least you KNOW where the ships are, but that doesn’t make them any smaller!

They come in all shapes and sizes with this being one of the smaller, fast moving ones that generates 3-4ft waves. Not much fun for the unsuspecting swimmer, but to be fair even less for those being rocked in the support boat. Luckily the support boat is operating within very strict rules and with radar and excellent visibility the risks are well managed all the time. Conditions were becoming more choppy and windy as the tides started to change and we moved out across the first shipping lanes.

Even with reasonable swimming conditions on the day, several other attempts had been aborted, one of these due to hypothermia, and it became apparent that coping with the changeable conditions is as much of a challenge as just covering a given distance in each hour. We have fewer pictures of the second half of the swim, from the "neutral" zone between the shipping lanes and over to France. But you can see from the picture below that, as the tide changed to oppose the wind, the sea became distinctly choppy.


We hadn’t expected to maintain the good pace of the first half (4 hours 50 to half way) but despite the choppier state of the sea it was left to Ellery, on the tenth leg, to strike out for the shore. (Jim Boucher, author of this article, has France in his sights, above.) An ebbing tide meant that the boat could not follow her into the shore so she had a very difficult last 400m through the waves eventually celebrating her arrival alone on the largest rock near the shore at 17:50pm. Her fastest stretch of the day was to catch the departing boat and join in the celebrations fuelled by a couple of bottles of champagne, two bags of crinkly crisps and a bar of chocolate!

The skipper had managed to drop us more or less right on the shortest route across and our time of nine hours 35 minutes was better than some much-better-prepared and, dare we say, younger teams this year. We averaged just under two miles each, in all the one-hour segments, when the longest pool race we’d ever do is 1500m. Being able to cover a set distance isn’t everything though, and for this sort of relay you need the determination to succeed and team-spirit to keep going when conditions are against you – that’s what we will all take from this. And there’s a rock on the other side that will be forever a piece of Guildford!


All of the swimmers are regulars at the Guildford Lido and are extremely grateful for the superb facilities and support given by all the staff allowing them to train under the supervision of Guildford City Coach Vince Ayling and Chris Allflatt. In addition many friends, work colleagues and employers have recognised the team’s achievements by making generous sponsorship donations, likely to total £1,000 or more, for Muscular Dystrophy.